The letter to the church at Ephesus was written to a community of Christ followers by Paul. Paul was writing to shape their identities in the gospel. He was so excited about writing to them about Jesus that he started his letter with a single, huge, sentence that contains seven verbs: blessed, chose, destined, bestowed, lavished, made known, and gather up.
Paul begins with “blessed”:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, (Ephesians 1:3 ESV)
The blessed God blessed the followers of Jesus with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” This a done deal. It’s happened Paul says. If you follow Jesus you have been blessed by the blessed God.
Eugene Peterson writes, “What God does comes out of who God is. And what we receive from God is who God is. The being of God is expressed in the action of God. Our experience of God is who God is. (Practice Resurrection, 57).”
God is the blessed one. So out of who he is he blesses. He gives us himself. We in turn bless others. That means that we give them ourselves.
How are you experiencing the blessed God blessing you? How are you giving yourself to others?
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